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Bill Hader gets high school flashbacks from 'Friday Night Lights'
While he may be one of the most beloved comedians of his era, there’s a part of Bill Hader that still thinks of himself as being the “film nerd” in high school. It’s why he could never watch Friday Night Lights.
During a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, former Saturday Night Live standout Bill Hader — who was on the show to promote his starring voice role in the new animated Cat in the Hat movie — revealed that he can’t watch the acclaimed NBC high school football drama series Friday Night Lights.
Bill Hader said he can’t watch Friday Night Lights because it reminds him of being a nerd at football practice in high school
It’s not that he’s got anything against the show, though, but rather the way it makes him feel, as it apparently gives him flashbacks to running hills at football practice — Hader played tight end for his Oklahoma high school’s team — being the “film nerd” in high school.
“That’s why I couldn’t watch that show Friday Night Lights. Just people with that accent that I grew up with saying ‘football,'” Hader joked with Kimmel (the below video has been queued up to play at this moment).
“Kyle Chandler would be like, ‘We gotta play football,’ and I was like… I was waiting for him to just turn to me like, ‘Hader, hills, now!’ But no, I was like the film nerd there. ‘You guys wanna watch the new Wim Wenders movie?'”
Next up for the 48-year-old Hader — who has been largely laying low since the conclusion of his hit HBO series Barry in 2023, will be the psychological horror film They Know, his feature film directorial debut.
In addition to directing, Hader also wrote the screenplay (from a story he co-created with Duffy Bourdreau) for They Know, which follows a divorced father who becomes paranoid that his daughters are being influenced by his ex-wife’s boyfriend.
Alongside Hader in the starring role, the ex-wife is being played by beloved actress Linda Cardellini, while newcomers Lilou Lang and Lorelei Olivia Mote star as the couple’s daughters. The actor playing the mysterious boyfriend has not yet been disclosed.
“I love him. I think he’s so talented and so smart and the script was really wonderful,” Cardellini has said of the project. “It’s definitely his incredibly extraordinary point of view.”
After briefly shelving the project, Hader says he was inspired to return to it by Ari Aster’s 2025 film Eddington. Production on They Know began in April, and Hader said last month that they’re currently sound-mixing the film and preparing it to show it to potential buyers.
Hader will also be starring as Eddie Baron / Rake in the upcoming film adaptation of the award-winning George Saunders experimental novel Lincoln in the Bardo alongside Tom Hanks (as Abraham Lincoln), André Holland, Willem Dafoe, Jonathan Bailey, Peter Dinklage, Colman Domingo, Tom Waits, and Meryl Streep.